I'll rephrase, society is immoral given the option and do an elected governments role is to help enforce moral behaviour through taxation (amongst other things)?

My view is that we are all essentially moral but due to the scale of society government is necessary as parameters need to be put into place to ensure it functions. Very small communities can self govern.

If people were inherently immoral then no society would be possible at all, government or no.

Aargh. wrote:
I'll rephrase, society is immoral given the option and do an elected governments role is to help enforce moral behaviour through taxation (amongst other things)?

Well kinda, if society is hypocritical (as Chopsen said, I don't particularly disagree with him) so taxation via an elected government is indeed the moral balance used do balance this hypocrisy. It doesn't as much enforce moral behaviour as much as it excuses immoral behaviour due to certain assumed standards.

I'd say that the reason people can (and should) get annoyed at people gaming the system is that they have managed to excuse themselves at a much lower standard than is seen as acceptable, It's not like greedy tax avoidance is a cosmic constant or anything (it's hard;y immoral in Monaco, say), it's just part of the whole social contract thing.

kalel wrote:
My view is that we are all essentially moral but due to the scale of society government is necessary as parameters need to be put into place to ensure it functions. Very small communities can self govern.

If people were inherently immoral then no society would be possible at all, government or no.

I agree with this. But I think it works for "big print" stuff like killing people, harming them directly and physically, stealing, stuff like that. Things that any person of reasonable emotional maturity can see directly as being wrong. How to pay tax is so far withdrawn from any sense of immediate consequence or impact on people that I don't think ideas of inherent moral compass apply so easily.

kalel wrote:
My view is that we are all essentially moral but due to the scale of society government is necessary as parameters need to be put into place to ensure it functions. Very small communities can self govern.

If people were inherently immoral then no society would be possible at all, government or no.

I agree with this. But I think it works for "big print" stuff like killing people, harming them directly and physically, stealing, stuff like that. Things that any person of reasonable emotional maturity can see directly as being wrong. How to pay tax is so far withdrawn from any sense of immediate consequence or impact on people that I don't think ideas of inherent moral compass apply so easily.

Again though, on small scales people can accept taxation is fair and necessary. A small office might have a tea kitty or whatever. People generally accept that communal needs have to paid for by the community.

I do agree with much of what you're saying but I don't accept that anyone who takes issue with tax avoidance is essentially a hypocrite, as they'd do the same given half the chance. I do think there is an element of people being offended by behaviour that they genuinely would not do themselves.

Prime Minister David Cameron has refused to criticise Gary Barlow over alleged use of a tax avoidance scheme.

Mr Cameron said he was not going to give a "running commentary" on people's tax affairs - but he had made an exception for comedian Jimmy Carr because "it was a particularly egregious example of an avoidance scheme that seemed to me to be wrong".

LeoliansBro wrote:
I thought it was the 60s. And this is (as an aside) a very good example of misapplication of tax - those with cars subsidising those without.

Only if you make the erroneous assumption that the road came after the car, which it didn't. Roads/carriageways have always been there, paid for by general taxation. Heavy-arsed cars came along, fucking up the surfaces of those roads for everyone, therefore it was decided they'd be charged accordingly, to help compensate for the damage and disruption they cause

X201 wrote:Prime Minister David Cameron has refused to criticise Gary Barlow over alleged use of a tax avoidance scheme.

Mr Cameron said he was not going to give a "running commentary" on people's tax affairs - but he had made an exception for comedian Jimmy Carr because "it was a particularly egregious example of an avoidance scheme that seemed to me to be wrong".

Basically he demonstrates US reduction of taxes of the rich has led to a decline in total employment. That the middle class pretty much pay for most things in society and if they have disposable income they create jobs through consumption. The rich try and keep jobs down, to make profits, it is a last call to employ more people. But the call is middle class demand not rich men.

So there are not enough rich men, and there never will be, in the US to power its economy with jobs.They can earn 3000 times more than the average worker but don't consume 3000 times more. If you increase the average worker's wage then demand across the economy will increase and jobs will follow.

Inertia wrote:
Basically he demonstrates US reduction of taxes of the rich has led to a decline in total employment. That the middle class pretty much pay for most things in society and if they have disposable income they create jobs through consumption. The rich try and keep jobs down, to make profits, it is a last call to employ more people. But the call is middle class demand not rich men.

So there are not enough rich men, and there never will be, in the US to power its economy with jobs.They can earn 3000 times more than the average worker but don't consume 3000 times more. If you increase the average worker's wage then demand across the economy will increase and jobs will follow.

I haven't watched this yet but the solution he mentioned just leads to rampant inflation. Also him saying that it's the middle class that creates the demand that drives growth is true and it always has been. The rich are too tiny in number... It's all too obvious.

The rich he seems to be going on about are those that own business. Yeah they will try and keep costs down to maximise profits. It's logical.

His main thrust is that the rich as job creators is a myth. He only has about 6 minutes to talk. But he shows some figures about tax and inflation adjusted pay averages that we would have expected but don't see etc.

It's not going to change your world if you are clued up on economics, As you said inflation can iron out any pay increases if they happen across the whole of society, but it is something you don't normally hear in the mainstream press.

What he is saying is that the rich create jobs to profit from demand but middle class demand is the true creator of jobs. Stifle that demand and all the rich men in the world can't make jobs happen if nobody is buying. It's an obvious synergy between the two but it 's worth stating because if you decimate middle class spending as this government has the rich cannot make up the slack by creating jobs where demand is not met.

And I think the government has kind of twigged that they can't be too austere against the middle classes as growth has been stagnant for too long. Tax cuts to the rich won't create enough jobs. It may attract wealth to this country but that in itself is not going to create enough jobs.

For me that is a reasonable premise, not the whole picture, and different sectors have different economic factors, but as an idea not held too tightly, it is certainly more preferable than do whatever the rich want as they are the guarantors of our future.